A single woman's journey

Month: June 2014

I’D like to say it’s not every Saturday night I spend laughing at a man’s penis but who am I kidding? It SO is. The only difference is that this time, it’s not one, but two penises (I feel the plural form should be peni?) at which I am chortling. Now, before you think I’ve gone all French on you, it was all work, I swear. And no, I am not supplementing my paltry freelance journalism income for prostitution. Yet. You see, I found myself in the curious position, if you’ll pardon the pun, of reviewing these penises for a story. Well, not exactly their penises, but they did form a rather huge (nudge nudge) part of the show about which I was writing. Yes, on Saturday night, I saw a performance called The Naked Magicians at the Brisbane Powerhouse.
I don’t want to spoil things for everyone who simply must go and see this show, so I’ll just share some of the more unusual highlights, including the set, upon which there’s a blow-up doll, a box suspended in chains, two fans (which prove absolutely hilarious at the finale), a magic curtain, and a table. Magicians Christopher Wayne and Mike Tyler don’t believe in props, and certainly don’t believe in clothes, which are shed throughout the performance.
Yes, it’s R-rated magic at its stunning best but while it’s naughty and a little rude, it’s not crude. The magic is simply superb but what makes this show really sing is the boys’ ability to ad-lib, create comedy and even without the tantalising prospect of their tricky dickies dangling before you, you’d have a fantastic time. There’s also plenty of audience participation, including at the start of the show when a giant pink penis is tossed around the audience with gay abandon (which secretly thrilled the New Farm boys in the front row). I screamed when it hit me in the face, and couldn’t offload that bad boy quick enough.
Naturally, I spent most of the night wondering when it was pants-off time (the boys do start the show fully clothed) and when the proverbial rabbit might get pulled out of the hat. And I was not disappointed. There are no actual penis tricks (this is not Puppetry of the Penis, people) and for the record, I’m still recovering from seeing “the hamburger” from that show anyway. It’s more two all-Aussie blokes, making marvelous magic, in the best way they know how. Naked. Or as they say: “Good magicians don’t need sleeves and great magicians don’t need pants”.
How the boys actually hatched the idea to create a magic show that they would perform naked is beyond me, but you can bet your bottom (wink wink) dollar, that every woman and gay man in the audience will now be expecting far more in bedrooms around Australia. As if we didn’t expect enough already. Yes, unless you can read my mind like these boys can, don’t call me, I’ll call you. Oh yeah, and there’s a fabulous phone trick too. The Naked Magicians, the best fun I’ve had in ages… with my pants on.The Global Goddess was a guest of The Brisbane Powerhouse. The Naked Magicians is running until June 29 before heading to regional Queensland and on to Las Vegas. http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org

THERE are seven men to every woman in Christchurch. A salacious fact onto which I clutched as tightly as my passport as I flew across the Tasman at the weekend. Six years ago, I saw my first ever fortune teller who emphatically predicted that not only would I meet a man who was either younger than me or young at heart, but I would meet him in New Zealand. At the time I was ecstatic, given I was flying to Queenstown that very weekend, convinced my luck was about to change. It was my first trip across the ditch and it was incredible, but all I managed to do was meet a male editor who, like me, was stuck all alone in a luxurious alpine lodge with a bunch of honeymooners. We overcame this awkward fact by pretending we were newlyweds who didn’t spend any time together except over dinner at night, which confused the smug, happy couples, and is a story about which we still laugh to this day.
A year or so later I won another trip to Queenstown, a jaunty journey on which I invited my sister and about which I have previously blogged the perils that awaited us at our destination. We escaped white outs, igloos, icy mountains, a narcoleptic and a randy ram just by the skin of our teeth and with the assistance of copious amounts of whiskey. The only bloke I met on that trip was on the flight home and whom I wrongly accused of sitting in my seat, which made for some rather awkward hours back to Australia. I returned to New Zealand a year or two later, this time to attend a conference in Rotorua, where I vowed I could never marry a man who smelled strongly of sulphur.
But last weekend I went back, lured by a girl’s weekend and the firm fact that there are now seven men to every woman in Christchurch, the odds surely on my side. I should explain this mathematical impossibility by letting you know that the reason there are so many men in town these days is that they are rebuilding this pretty city after the devastating earthquake of February 2011, in which 187 people were killed, 1000 buildings destroyed, and about more of which I will write later.
As per usual, my story begins before I even board the plane when a 60-something man at Sydney International Airport leans him arm against my body, before jumping in surprise and exclaiming: “Oh, I’m sorry, you looked like a table.” Now, I know my universal sex appeal holds no bounds, but even for me, this was a new low. A piece of furniture? A table wearing a leopard-print scarf, clasping an orange handbag and drinking a glass of red wine? Things have leapt off to their usual sterling start.
The clock is pointing glaringly past 1am when I arrive in Christchurch with my four new female friends and when we attempt to check in, the receptionist asks whether we are “here for the wedding?”. “Well, I am looking for a husband”, I reply, before scuttling away to my room. Half an hour later, there’s a knock on my door, and just as I’m mentally praising the hotel for their prompt delivery of the man of my dreams, I open the door to find the receptionist who has decided that since one of asked for a toothbrush kit, all of us must have forgotten our toothbrushes. I ponder this logic into the wee small hours of the morning.
Breakfast is at C1 Espresso café with owner Sam Crofskey, 37, who not only lost his original café across the road in the quake, but his house as well. Sam was working in his high street café when the earthquake hit.
“I was a little bit confused. The coffee grinders fell off and landed on my legs and the power went off and then I could hardly stand,” he says.
“We needed to get rid of the customers, the staff and then ourselves. We had more than 100 people in the café at the time.
“Out on the street everyone was distraught and I thought everyone was over-reacting. I thought we’d come back tomorrow and clean everything up. It took a lot more for me to understand the city was actually gone. When you are here with no power or phone you have no idea what’s going on.
“I was like, my business if fucked, my house is fucked…that’s annoying.”
Sam moved C1 across the road to the old post office – the first reinforced concrete building built in Christchurch – and reopened in November 2012.
These days, the café retains the old post office vault – now used for a coffee machine; sparkling water is poured from a dentist tap; a sliding bookcase leads to the toilet; and burgers are delivered to patrons via tubes which run from the kitchen to tables.
And on the rooftop there’s a vineyard and beehives with plans to build an eight-room boutique hotel here in the near future.
“We wanted to rebuild it as a legacy. There are lots of really cool things in Christchurch. We opened the doors and people flooded in. They really wanted to connect with the central city,” Sam says.
“Christchurch was a broken city before the earthquake full of old, white people. It had no young people. But now people are doing cool stuff and are proud to be here.
“The lights are on and people are home now. The old rules are gone.”
It’s at this early point in my trip that the story I thought I would write about Christchurch starts to change. We head over to the CTV site where 115 people – the majority of victims – were killed in the earthquake. There’s nothing there now but a simple plaque, dedicated to the dead. In the background, there’s a colourful mural of a naked woman from the Calendar Girl’s Strip Club, one of the first buildings to reopen, and presumably going great guns with so many labourers from around the world in town.
Across the road from the CTV site sits the Cardboard Cathedral, constructed from, among things, 96 gigantic cardboard tubes, as a gathering place for the devastated community. But one of the most touching sites in Christchurch sits just across from the cathedral – 187 white chairs to commemorate every person who died in the earthquake. Visitors are invited to spend time there, reflect and even sit on a chair with the simple words: “choose one that speaks to you.”
In the badly affected Anglican Cathedral, locals say when the quake hit, a statue of the Virgin Mary spun around and faced towards Christchurch. Outside here, there’s a pile of “sorry stones” on which visitors have penned their condolences. Colourful Buddhist prayer flags flap in the breeze nearby.
But there’s also hope among the rubble. In the aptly-named Re:START sector, businesses are blossoming out of shipping containers. New Zealand fashion designers are peddling their wares alongside cafes and craft stores. In New Regent Street entrepreneurs such as Rekindle are turning waste wood from demolished homes into edgy jewellery, art and furniture.
Just out of town, other businesses, such as The Tannery Boutique Retail and Arts Emporium are finding previously hard-to-secure council approval for businesses is much easier these days, as the city rebuilds. There’s even a Ministry of Awesome in Christchurch these days, where some of the city’s creatives gather to discuss ways to recreate devastated areas.
It’s a city of gap fillers and anchor projects. Colourful graffiti art adorns massive walls, impromptu gardens are planted everywhere and street installations are a delightful discovery around every corner. The town clock, which stopped at 12.50pm – the precise moment the earthquake hit – still stands in the town.
As for the men, to be honest, I’m so enraptured by this city’s story of resilience and resurrection, I forget to look. The earth moved for me in Christchurch, just not in the way I expected.The Global Goddess travelled as a guest of Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism. To book your own escape, go to http://www.christchurchnz.com

ALWAYS on trend, I spent last month indulging in my own little version of Eurovision but rather than it being all about the music, it’s been all about the men. Oh yes, I went all Euro trash on you and spent the best part of May “observing” the male species of the northern hemisphere in the vague hope they may differ somewhat from those blokes south of the Equator to whom I’ve already devoted too much ink, sweat and tears.
It all started in Berlin where I was researching and writing a story about 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In my spare time (and because I am extremely gifted at doing two things at once), I fumbled into a bar one night and stumbled across Jerry. Jerry, possibly not his real name and of South American extraction, was the official entertainment claiming his skills lay in “music and magic”.
I was with several newly-discovered friends: Calamity Jane from Chicago; Mike, a jolly gay Welsh man; and Eva “I’m just a poor girl from the Czech Republic”. It was Calamity’s birthday and she insisted we stand at the bar, a bit like Russian prostitutes, and drink wine until Jerry started up with the musical part of his two-pronged performance. Mike’s suspicion that Jerry was lip-syncing turned out to be true, as part-way through one of his love songs his voice kept crooning while he simultaneously whispered in Eva’s ear that he would “see her in an hour”. Our poor Czech girl scuttled promptly back to her room, followed soon after by Mike – the jolliness rapidly draining from him.
Which left Calamity, me and Jerry, who paused to say: “Ladies I have some bad news, there’s two of you, but only one Jerry”. As it was Calamity’s birthday I insisted she receive the spoils and I was content to do my own interpretive dance in front of strangers I hope I will never see again. I may or may not have been a little rusty the next morning when after breakfast I returned to my room to find not one, but two Romanian men standing there. I assumed they were the cleaners, such as they were grasping some of my most intimate items, and so I spoke to them in German, to assure them I was just popping back to clean my teeth and then I’d leave them alone. They just stood there looking scared and confused. So I spoke to them in English. Again, more confusion. To this day I remain unclear on whether they were the cleaners or two Romanian robbers but they did line my shoes up nicely when they left.
In the sexy Saxon town of Leipzig, Calamity and I snuck out half way through a Strauss Concert to hit the bar street, where we spent several pleasant hours drinking beer in the company of two young men, one of them who claimed to be Germany’s third-best dancer and quite possibly a distant cousin of Jerry. But we had little time to dance and so we headed on to Bremen with Mike and Eva in tow, and where I promptly fell in love with a Passionate Pole. Women around the world will attest to the fact it’s always the bad boy to whom we are initially drawn, and so it was with the Pole. I was absolutely delighted he had randomly chosen to join my tour of the Bremen Space Centre the next morning. So delighted was I, that I insisted he sit next me on the bus. He even told me the photo on the fake ID I used to get into the Space Centre (bereft was I of my passport or driver’s licence at that particular point) was very nice and the most interesting thing he had to say all trip.
Yes, it took me no time to realise that, like all bad boys worldwide, he really had nothing to say and was actually a Greasy Pole, so I shuffled down to the back of the bus at which point I turned to my right and happened across the Hot Hungarian. His first name was unpronounceable but he said I could call him “Andrew” which didn’t really fit with his gravelly deep voice, thick curly hair and bushy beard. I actually invested several days in fantasising about the Hot Hungarian, sitting at the back of the bus staring at his head, imagining crawling up into his beard for a nap. Things got a little sticky when he actually caught me taking a photo of him standing at the port at Bremerhaven but I simply pretended I was happily standing in the freezing cold, taking a photo of the unimpressive wharf.
As luck would have it, I made friends with a Hungarian woman called Suska who offered to act as my wing woman and asked me what I’d like to tell the Hot Hungarian. The only phrase which came to me was “I want to see your Hungarian sausage” which I’m sure is sexy in several languages. But it was not to be. On our last night in Bremen I noticed the Hot Hungarian had attached himself to a gorgeous German with whom I could never hope to compete – all long wavy dark hair and bad-ass boots. So I conceded defeat and amused myself with the plethora of wing women I had accumulated along the way.
When I eventually dragged myself back to the hotel lobby, I bumped into Suska, my Hungarian wing woman, who happened to be sitting with the Hot Hungarian himself, all traces of the gorgeous German gone. At this point, he leapt to his feet, handed me his business card and asked for mine. “It’s such a shame you won’t be coming to Budapest on your European travels. I would have loved to have shown you around,” he said. “And if you’re ever in Brisbane, I will show you around,” I said, taking one last lingering look at that beard before I turned on my not-so-bad-ass boots and walked straight for the lift.
Just when I thought my adventure was surely over, into the lift appeared another man from absolutely nowhere. And he started to speak rapid-fire German to me. I was tired and asked him to repeat himself in English, at which point he declared he’d love to have a drink with me, before proffering his business card. His name was Gerhard and he was a Lufthansa pilot, or a cousin of Jerry masquerading as a Lufthansa pilot. Exhausted and confused I just keep repeating: “But where did you come from?”. Gerhard was not fazed and asked me to call him during my Bremen stay. It was tempting Gerhard, particularly the thought that sometime in the near future there might be a Lufthansa upgrade with my name on it, but I’m in love with a Hot Hungarian. The bushy boy from Budapest, whose name I cannot pronounce.The Global Goddess travelled to Germany as a guest of the German National Tourist Office. To experience your own German escape, go to http://www.germany.travel

THE hour hand is nudging midnight when I eventually arrive at my Stockholm hotel and for the first time in weeks since I touched down in Europe, I find myself in a less than sparkling mood. In terms of travel days, it hasn’t been the easiest, but you’re bound to strike one of these when you’ve been on the road for several weeks, tackling different countries, airports, time zones and languages.
It all starts while I’m still in London, where I mistake the British two pound coin for a fifty pence piece, and hence tip the driver the equivalent of $AUD8. He deposits me near Victoria Bus Station where I order a red wine and pizza before my trip to the airport. The colourful Italian feast arrives at the very moment a small child walking past suddenly violently vomits all over the footpath right alongside the outdoor café at which I am dining. Not only can my churning stomach not face the pizza, I fear I may never eat again. I watch in horror as other travellers drag their suitcases through the pavement Picasso.
At the airport, the budget carrier on which I am travelling is supremely strict about the two kilograms extra weight my luggage is carrying (if only they knew how much lighter I was before my schnitzel and beer tour of Germany), and I am forced to creatively repack in front of an angry queue, who it seems is bemused by my cache of colourful comfy undies. Finally at the other end, the instructions I’ve been given for the bus from Stockholm airport to my hotel are incorrect – as I’ve arrived at a different airport – and after I’ve paid the insanely high taxi fare and refuse to tip the driver I alight from his cab, both of us cranky. As the driver flings my luggage onto the pavement, comfy undies threatening to spill everywhere, a strange Swede appears in the dark from absolutely nowhere, offering to buy me a glass of wine. For a brief moment I think it’s Gerhard, the gregarious German who popped up out of the blue in a Bremen lift a few weeks earlier, and who I will write about in next week’s blog about European men. And if only I’d known at this late hour there would be no food or wine in the entire hotel when I do check in, I might have said yes to the sleazy Swede’s offer. Heck, at this point if he’d possessed a stale bread roll, I would have married him.
My pilgrimage to see the museum which pays homage to the best band to EVER strut the planet – ABBA – has not launched with quite the bang a boomerang I was expecting. I am feeling less Super Trouper and more Chiquitita. But after a dinner, which consists of the four chocolate marzipan love hearts my German friends have secretly hidden in my suitcase and a glass of tap water from the bathroom, I tell myself things will look better in the morning. And they do.
Stockholm has turned on a dazzling day, 20 degrees, warm and sunny and I elect to sit atop a hop-on, hop-off bus to familiarise myself with this city in which I have just 24 hours. And I know one of the stops is at ABBA The Museum. I impatiently sit through 13 other destinations which outline the historical buildings for which this city is famous, my mind on Stop 14 and the real reason I find myself taking a side-step to Sweden. There was nothing to do growing up in 1970s country Queensland except listen to ABBA and my three sisters and me were virtual Dancing Queens. Such ABBA tragics are we, that one of my sisters still has the collector bubble gum ABBA cards, including a list of the ones she is missing, in the unlikely event she should meet a like-minded person who happens to possess the others, and this strange quirk should come up randomly in conversation. I was more of an end-of-the-skipping-rope singer, fighting with my best friend over who got to be the “blonde one”. My darker-haired bestie looked more like Frida, so it all worked out in the end, at least as far as I was concerned.
And on this sunny Stockholm day I wish my best friend or sisters were here, as I discover ABBA The Museum is much more fun in a group, if the funky Frankfurters dressed as Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida are any indication. But I delight in watching them prancing and dancing and their European enthusiasm is infectious. I may only be a one-man band, but one of us is not lonely, and pretty soon I’m partaking in all of the interactive displays, including standing on stage and becoming the fifth member of the band. It’s not every day I fly to a country solely for the purpose of visiting a museum. The immigration officer at Stockholm Airport was incredulous when I told him my reason for visiting his country and demanded to see evidence of my return flight out of the Swedish capital. At one point I thought I might need to start singing Take A Chance On Me in order to enter the country, but he eventually understood my insanity. And the trip was worth every Kroner. I fly out to Berlin the next morning, the lyrics to The Winner Takes It All swirling around in my head, my Super Trouper ready to tackle the long flight back to Australia.The Global Goddess paid for her own flights to Stockholm and stayed at the comfortable Ibis Styles Stockholm Jarva – which does indeed have lovely food and wine if you arrive at a decent hour – on a media rate – http://www.ibis.com. She visited ABBA The Museum courtesy of the museum – http://www.abbathemuseum.com